I looked past her, toward the kitchen, where I could just barely see the Mortensen men moving around with the dishes. “For now, I’d just settle for a few moments alone.”
She made no comment about that, but later, when the guys returned to the living room, she said very casually, “Seth, would you mind going upstairs to get my red cardigan? I left it on the foot of the bed.”
Seth was about to sit down—far away from me, of course—but sprang up instantly at the request. As soon as he’d disappeared up the stairs, Andrea nudged me with her elbow. I turned to her, startled, and she jerked her head toward the stairs.
I found him in the bedroom, staring around curiously for the sweater that most likely didn’t even exist. When he saw me in the doorway, he sighed heavily, realizing he’d been tricked.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said, attempting to move past me.
I put out my arm to block the door. “Seth, please. Just listen to me. Just for a few minutes.”
He stood there, only a few inches away, and then backed up. Since he apparently didn’t want to push past and risk touching me, he must have decided distance was better, even at the risk of being trapped in the room. “Georgina, there is nothing you can say. Nothing that can change what happened between us.”
“I know that,” I said. “I’m not going to try.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “You aren’t?”
I swallowed, all words and thoughts fading from me as I stared into his eyes. There it was—that look. That same look of hurt and utter devastation that Kyriakos had worn so many centuries ago. It was looking out at me through Seth’s eyes.
I nodded. “We need to know about your contract. We just want to know some details.”
“To help you?” he asked.
“To help both of us. From what we’ve gathered, Hell violated my contract when it wrote yours. And that makes the conditions of yours contradictory. We might be able to get them both invalidated . . . but we need to understand yours better.”
Seth leaned against the wall, eyes staring vacantly ahead as his thoughts turned inward. “I don’t even understand the details of my contract. I barely remember it. . . . I mean, I do and don’t. What went down . . . with the hypnosis . . . it’s real and it’s not.”
I started to take a step forward, wanting badly to touch him and comfort him since he was clearly distraught. Caution held me back. “You have to try. Right now, if you don’t, then you’re going to go to Hell when you die. Doesn’t matter if you become a saint before then. That contract brands your soul . . . unless, well . . . we’re not sure if there was some condition that if you and I got back together, then you’d be free. That’s what we need to know.”
“Does it matter?” he asked. “Seeing as that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen—doesn’t look like it was ever going to happen, if all those lives were any indication.”
“Well, I mean, yeah . . . it matters in that the more information we have, the better our case.”
“Can’t you just have Hugh look it up?”
I shook my head. “Not without raising attention. It’d be better if we can get the details from you.”
“Well, sorry, then. I don’t remember anything more than what I told you. And honestly? I don’t care.”
“How can you not care?” I asked incredulously. “It’s your
“I’ll take my chances,” he said.
A spark of anger permeated the sorrow that had clung to me these last couple days. “There are no ‘chances.’ It’s a done deal. Your soul belongs to Hell. Nothing’s going to change it.”
“Does it really matter? You
“For you!” I cried. “I did it for you. To save you. I would do it a hundred times over if I had to.”
Seth scoffed. “Why didn’t you just
“I was young, and I was stupid,” I said, amazed at how levelly I could acknowledge that. “I was scared, and I felt like you were so far away from me. Like I wasn’t part of your priorities anymore. It was all about work and music for you.”
“And you never thought about talking to me about any of that first? You know you can always bring anything up to me.”
I sighed. “To
“But I
“Yes and no,” I said. “Look, I’m no expert on reincarnation, but from what I know, even though the soul and some parts of the character are constant, there’s still, like . . . evolving taking place. You grow and change. That’s the point of reincarnation. You’re the same person, but you aren’t. You weren’t perfect back then. Hell, you aren’t now. Maybe you—Seth—can handle talking about this . . . maybe after ten lives, you’ve developed enough relationship maturity. Back then? I’m not so sure. I obviously didn’t have it either.”
“Obviously,” he repeated. His gaze held me for a long time, and this time, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling. At least there was no overt hate or anything. Either that, or he’d simply learned to conceal it. Finally, he said, “I meant it. I don’t remember the contract details. . . . Just that I would be allowed to keep finding you.”
“That’s it?” I said. “Nothing else? If there’s anything more . . . I mean, the stakes here are huge, Seth. I know you said you’d take your chances, but remember when we’re talking about your soul, we’re looking beyond the scope of one human life. We’re looking at eternity.”
“There you go again,” he said, with a small, rueful smile. “Making an argument for the sanctity of the soul, a soul you threw away.”
“And I told you before, I’d do it again.”
“So you wouldn’t have to face me and look me in the eye after what you’d done.”
“In part,” I said. “But also to save your life. To give you a chance at happiness. Because at that moment . . . that was more important than my eternity.”
Seth took a long time to answer, and I again wished I knew what was happening behind those brown eyes. Whose thoughts were stirring in there? His or Kyriakos’s? Or any of the other men I’d had turbulent romances with?
“You didn’t want to face me then,” he said at last. “But here you are. Why? To save your own soul?”
“To save both our souls,” I said.
Seth straightened up from his slouch against the wall and moved toward the door. “I can’t help you. I mean it—I don’t remember anything else. Now. If you’d please make some polite excuse to the others and leave, I’d really appreciate it.”
He came to stand in front of me in the doorway, and for a half a second, time stood still as we studied each other, only a few inches apart. A thousand feelings warred within me, powered by a thousand years’ worth of lifetimes. With a slow nod, I yielded and let him walk past me.
He didn’t look back.
Chapter 16
The next week was one of the longest in my life. Every moment that passed was a moment without Seth and another reminder that I’d lost my one great love.
Even if I hadn’t quit as Santa’s helper, that job would’ve been done now anyway, so my days were made even longer by their emptiness. Hugh was over a lot that week, and sometimes he and Roman tried to cheer me up or at least distract me. Mostly, they were holed up together, working on my appeal to Hell. They occasionally consulted me on it, but Hugh had most of the info he needed and simply had to put it all together in the appropriate manner. The two of them discussed other things too, mostly having to do with Hell’s legal system in general. I didn’t entirely understand why, but Roman was very adamant about learning every detail of it. It was like he was trying to pass the bar exam or something.
